Thursday, May 31, 2007

The final installment for "Narrative Theme" month is Japanese show based on a french book.

The Adventures of the Little Prince

In July of 1978, Hoshi no Ojisama Puchi Puransu was released in Japan. The series, which means Prince of the Stars: Petit Prince, contained 39 episodes may of which were directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. Yasuhiko not only directed but was also the character designer. He then went on to be the influential character designer for Mobile Suit Gundam.

The series was re-cut and dubbed into English and brought to a North American audience in 1982. Only 26 of the 39 episodes were dubbed.

The story, which is loosely based on the 1943 book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, follows the adventures of a young boy who lives on a tiny planet called B6-12. He lives alone on that planet so every episode he rides a comet to Earth, his favourite planet and meets the local people.

The show was a hit with small children and became quite dear to children of the eighties. Do you remember this theme song?

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I just got back from the Police concert here in Vancouver. What a great show. These guys are some great musicians and they just kept on punding out hit after hit for almost two hours! The stage was simple and classy, with no huge video screens or pyrotechnics to impress us like some other bands feel the need to do (Nickleback).

The sold-out stadium was chearing the entire time with particularly loud screaming for some of the more popular hits like Roxanne, So Lonely and Every Breath You Take.

Stewart Copeland is an amazing drummer and I spent most of my time watching his moves hoping that one day I would be half the drummer that he is. For a few of the numbers he left the kit for an amazing assortment of various percussion instruments. He set a simple rhythm to his iMac and filled in the beat with cymbals, bells, tympani, and other drums and noisemakers.

Dispite being twenty years older, Sting was still able to sing his songs. While his voice can no longer get those incredibly high parts anymore he still retained all the energy and did a great job through out the show.

Andy Summers still had it too. He pulled of some amazing guitar work and really played to the crowd. A couple of times he got lost and you could tell by the look on his face that he was just noodling on his guitar until he could figure out where he was. But he rolled with it and if you weren't paying close attention you wouldn't have noticed. That's a good musician.

I did notice that Andy was wearing a South Park guitar strap and while I'm sure you are wondering why I'm posting this post on an animation blog you will have to humour me with this loose tie-in. I really just wanted to talk about the show.

This picture was taken by my friend Courtney who was at the Monday night show.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

If you want to see some of the worst animation ever, check out this promo for the Shrek babies that made their big screen debut in Shrek the Third.

Speaking of Shrek the Third, the second sequel to the popular Shrek franchise hit it big on opening weekend. $121,629,270 and the highest opening weekend for an animated film! Wow!

I can't say that I am a fan of these Shrek movies. I enjoyed the first one because it was new and fresh. I liked the parody and the characters, but now I am disgusted with the fan-base and marketing strategies.

Dreamworks seems to be marketing this movie to kids, which is very understandable: It is an animated film with cute characters and fart jokes. But the writers of this movie have filled the second film so much with Hollywood in-jokes that I find it hard to believe that children had a good time at all. Scenes are segued to the extreme in order to fit the most irrelevant movie parody thus distracting from the story.

I found Shrek 2 very hard to watch and, while I plan on watching Shrek the Third, I will wait until I can rent it.

Not Disney Princess!

But enough is enough. Dreamworks should let this franchise rest before they milk it dead. They have got three blockbuster movies and should stop while they are on top. Will they? Of course not. A fourth film is already in to works as well as a Puss-In-Boots spin-off and a Shrek holiday special for tv.

I really wish they would focus more on the rest of their animated library. I felt that Over the Hedge, a fantastic film, didn't get the publicity that it should have.

On the other hand, the upcoming Bee Movie has had some great marketing. The live-action trailers were great teasers and now I read that Jerry Sienfeld launched himself across a zipline in his bee costume overtop the Bee Movie premiere at the Cannes Film Festival! Great stuff! This is what Dreamworks should be doing!

Monday, May 28, 2007

Check out this new trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series.

This two-minute preview showcases the animation and special effects. I really like how they are keeping the look of this show consistent with the look of the films. But i also like that they are not trying to make the characters look real beyond belief. They have a definite cartoony look to them.

I was a little wary about this show but upon seeing this trailer, I have a new hope.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Week four of "Narrative Themes" month brings us one of the greatest sci-fi series of the seventies:

Flash Gordon and Dale Arden.

Flash Gordon

What was the ultra-huge sci-fi movie blockbuster that came out in 1977? You got it! Star Wars re-wrote the way space and sci-fi movies were made, so it is no surprise if you watch the old Filmation Flash Gordon series from 1979 and see a lot of Star Wars influence.

Originally as a comic strip from the 30s, the animated adventures of Flash Gordon follow the edge-of-your-seat adventures storylines that leave you on a cliffhanger at the end of every episode.

This serial style of storytelling was not new to the comic strips but it was something that was not usually done in a children's cartoon. Enticing viewers to return everyday to see what happened next worked well for the show as it ran its sixteen episode premiere season but did not bring in the ratings that the network wanted.

Princess Aura

Two years later, NBC ordered a second season but insisted that each episode was to be self-contained. In fact, NBC wanted two eleven-minute stories per episode! They wanted a show that was geared to a younger audience in the hopes to get stronger ratings than in season one.

An addition to the show was a small baby dragon called Gremlin that was added as the pet/sidekick/comic releif that every show in the seventies and eighties seemed the need to have. Gremlin stole the spotlight in many of the episodes only to be hated more and more by the fans.

To fans of the show, this second season was a disgrace. The fun and adventure of the first season had disappeared and what remained was a pile of garbage. The show was cancelled after eight episodes.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Starwars.com has released a promotional poster for the brand new Clone Wars animated series that is set to debut in 2008.

This show will be computer animation and will take place between Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

It will also be a continuation of the 2003 Flash animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars that aired on the Cartoon Network.

So far, Anthony Daniels is the only confirmed cast memeber for the show. He has always been the voice of C-3P0 in all six movies and every animated series. Good for him for returning once again. Fans eat that stuff up.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

In 1973, Hanna-Barbera launched the very first animated series based on the superhero team the Justice League of America!

This childrens' show went through many changes before airing, the most significant ischanging the name to Super Friends. In the height of the Vietnam War, HB thought it would be too jingoistic so a new 'friendlier' name was given.

There has never been a more epic battle

Challenge of the Super Friends was the third Super Friends series that ran during the 1978-1979 television series. The hour-long episodes were made up of two half-hour segments. The first segment stories were similar to the previous season, The All-New Super Friends Hour, which featured Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna.

The second segment stories were called The Super Friends vs. The Legion of Doom which saw a handful of villains teaming up to take over the world and take down the Super Friends.

l-r Apache Chief, Black Vulcan and Samurai

Twelve villains were hand picked by Lex Luthor to join the Legion of Doom.

The heroes that battled the Legion of Doom were Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman.

The Wonder Twins were cut from the roster in the half of the show for some reason.

Three new characters were created to join the Super Friends in order to add abit of cultural diversity to what would be an entirely white cast of characters. Their names are Black Vulcan, Apache Chief and Samurai and I'll let you guess which ethnic group each of them represent. While Hanna-Barbera's intentions were good at the time, they now seem quite stereotyped.

The theme to the Legion of Doom segment was written by John Beal and narrated by William Woodson.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Adding to the wonderful list of classic cartoon DVD being released this year is the final volume of Tom & Jerry! This is very exciting news and I hope that Warner Home Video will pay a bit more attention in what they are doing with this set. Volume One and two were advertised as complete, uncut and unedited but that was not the case as a number of shorts in both volumes were edited! Look for the description below.

Tex Avery's Droopy

Woody Woodpecker

May 15: Droopy - the Complete Theatrical Collection 24 shorts on 2 discs. All of Tex Avery's and Michael Lah's shorts including the Oscar nominated One Droopy Night. I have started watching this set and while the cartoons are a joy to watch, this set contains some of the worse cases of DNVR I have ever seen. It is very distracting to watch.

July 24: The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection 75 shorts on three discs that include fan-favourites such as Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Wally Walrus, Oswald Rabbit and many other Walter Lantz classics!

July 31: Popeye the Sailor - Volume 1: 1933-1938 60 shorts on 4 discs. All of the great Fleisher Studios Popeye cartoons are presented here, many for the first time, fully restored and in chronilogical order! Commentaries, documentaries and featurettes make up the many bonus features.

Popeye the Sailor

Early art work forTom & Jerry Vol.3

September 11: Tom & Jerry Spotlight Collection Volume Three This final volume will complete the collection of Tom & Jerry shorts directed by Will Hanna and Joe Barbera. A fourth volume of the Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones short would be nice but not likely.

December 11: Walt Disney Treasures: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit 26 shorts on two discs. The Treasures line of DVD is an annual event that Disney fans always look forward to. This year is a major highlight as this pre-Mickey Mouse star comes to DVD in a complete collection.

December 11: Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald - Volume Three 30-35 shorts on two discs. This third volume will include the first cartoons starring Donald's co-stars, Chip n' Dale!

But wait! There's more! We should hear about Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five sometime this summer. That set will have 60 more Looney Tunes shorts on four discs and will come out sometime this fall! Talk about good news! I won't be leaving my house this summer!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Every Friday somethingawful.com has a Photoshop contest open for anyone to enter. A few weeks ago, contestants were asked to create a movie poster for a pre-existing movie to look like a classic 'grindhouse' poster. Many of these are live-action films but a few animated movies have sneaked in there. While these animated ones are not that great, the rest of the collection are worth a look.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Here is a video that has been making the rounds on the internets. I figure it is good video to show here as I have recently been posting about various different cartoon bootlegs (you can read my posts about a bootleg Disneyland and Felix the Cat).

This video is a few clips from a Palestinian children's television show called Tomorrow’s Pioneers on Hamas’ Al Aqsa TV. The show stars Farfur, a Mickey Mouse clone, who teaches kids about Islamic rule and delivers some pretty harsh propaganda.

Why hasn't Disney put a stop to this? It is obviously a blatant rip-off and I can't imagine Disney wanting to have their spokesperson portray this kind of attitude. They must have some reason for not getting their lawyers on the case but I don't know what it is.

While this video is harsh and ripe with propaganda, let us not forget the films that Disney made for the very same reason during the USA's war-struck years. Education for Death is a good example.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

This month is "Narrative Theme Song" month. These theme songs feature a voice, usually the main character, explaining the plot overtop some cool music. This week's theme song is the first every computer animated television series.

The season one cast:Bob, Frisket, Enzo and Dot

ReBoot

ReBoot is a historical cartoon. In an age where almost everything you see on tv is computer animated it is hard to believe the first completely CG series was only thirteen years ago. That's right, in 1994 the Canadian computer animation company known as Mainframe Entertainment debuted its first television series.

Bob is the guardian of his city, Mainframe, which happens to be the inside of a computer. Along with his friends, Bob must defend Mainframe from the evil viruses, Megabyte and Hexidecimal. To make matters worse, Bob must also enter "games" that the "User" plays. If the User wins it destroys a good portion of the city.

The show was a fun adventure show that gained a good following. While it is fun for the kids, the real fan base was in the college crowd. Everyone and everything is named after a computer term and all the games parody actual games so the references that go right over the kids heads smack the college age right in the forehead.

Enzo and AndreAIa all grown upfrom season three.

Every episode in the first two seasons is self-contained. However toward the end of the second season the series took a much darker turn and ended on a cliffhanger. The show then got shelved so that Mainframe could concentrate on their new show, Beast Wars: Transformers.

Fans of the show pushed for a third season and after a year hiatus, ReBoot returned with a great storyline and impressive graphics due to the advance in the studio's graphics department.

Fans were thrilled. There third season was more than any of them could have hoped for. The third season concluded with a fantastic series finale but many questions still remained causing everyone to wonder if a fourth season would ever be made.

Three years later, a fourth season, in the form of two tv movies, were released and the fans were once again happy.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Fans of classic animation are loving this year. Within the last month five major classic cartoons have been announced in a deluxe DVD package:

May 15: Droopy - the Complete Theatrical Collection 24 shorts on 2 discs. All of Tex Avery's and Michael Lah's shorts including the Oscar nominated One Droopy Night.

July 24: The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection 75 shorts on three discs that include fan-favourites such as Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Wally Walrus, Oswald Rabbit and many other Walter Lantz classics!

July 31: Popeye the Sailor - Volume 1: 1933-1938 60 shorts on 4 discs. All of the great Fleisher Studios Popeye cartoons are presented here, many for the first time, fully restored and in chronilogical order! Commentaries, documentaries and featurettes make up the many bonus features.

Popeye the Sailor

Woody Woodpecker

December 11: Walt Disney Treasures: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit 26 shorts on two discs. The Treasures line of DVD is an annual event that Disney fans always look forward to. This year is a major highlight as this pre-Mickey Mouse star comes to DVD in a complete collection.

December 11: Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald - Volume Three 30-35 shorts on two discs. This third volume will include the first cartoons starring Donald's co-stars, Chip n' Dale!

But wait! There's more! We should hear about Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five sometime this summer. That set will have 60 more Looney Tunes shorts on four discs and will come out sometime this fall! Talk about good news! I won't be leaving my house this summer!

Monday, May 07, 2007

This post was brought to my attention the other day by Cartoon Brew. It appears that there is an amusement park in China called the Shijingshan Amusement Park that bears a striking resemblance to Disneyland. Everything from the castle to the characters are blatant rip-offs of the originals.

Japan Probe as a nice in-depth look at the park with many pictures and videos. One video focuses on how the costumed employees often take off their heads in public! A major Disney no-no!

A young girl with short menwith beards.

When asked about the Mickey Mouse copyright infringement, park officials state that the character isn't a mouse, but a cat with really big ears!

One tourist was noted saying "I don't understand why that is such a big problem. Shouldn't others be able to use those characters besides [Disney]?"

How long can this last? Well, the park opened 21 years ago and so far Disney hasn't had it shut down. The park attracts 1,500,000 people a year with their slogan "Disneyland is too far!"

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Welcome back to Thursday Theme Songs! It feels great to be back and I have a fun month planned for all of you! This month's theme is "Narrative Theme Songs". These are theme songs that have talking over the music, usually by the main character, telling you the plot of the show. Our first theme song is the Disney cult classic,

Gargoyles

Goliath and the clan

Created by Greg Weisman, Gargoyles had an interesting life of ups and downs. When the show was in development in 1993 Disney had never done a serious, sci-fi drama before. They didn't know if people would buy into it but they let Weisman do his thing and the result was 13 episodes that aired during the 1994-1995 season. The show dealt with many difficult subjects, such as victims of gun violence, and got the attention of many parental groups who were torn between liking the message and not thinking it was appropriate material for a children's cartoon.

The show's main characters are a group of Gargoyles who lived in medieval times. They were stone by day and warriors by night, sworn to protect their home, a Scottish castle. By they were put under a spell that turned them to stone until the spell was broken hundreds of years in the future, our present.

Goliah SMASH puny robot!

Fans of Star Trek got into this show because of the multiple Star Trek actors who lent their voices to the characters. Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes, Kate Mulgrew, Michael Dorn and Brent Spiner are just a few of many.

This is also the first serial show for Disney. Fans got into the show because characters changed and grew, people switched sides, and major continuity made the show interesting to watch. The writers often brought in elements of Norse history, King Arthur history and even elements of Shakespeare.

Gargoyles became a huge hit and Disney asked for another season. So Weisman and his crew set out to make another 13 episodes. But Disney didn't want 13 episodes, they wanted 52! Could Weisman pull it off? You bet!

Elisa and Goliath

Weisman left the show after its second season but the show lived on for two more seasons called Gargoyles: the Goliath Chronicles. The animation team changed, giving it a much softer, Little Mermaid feel to it. The stories also changed and the fans we not happy with the way many of the characters changed. The series ended in 1997 with a total of four seasons, 78 episodes.

The loyal fan base lives on to this day with people all over the world writing fanfiction and making their own continuations of the stories. An annual convention called Gathering of the Gargoyles meets where people can meet other fans, voice actors, the production team and dress up and have fun.

This theme song is the second season theme in which they added narration by Keith David, aka Goliath.

Animated Toast!

Welcome to Animated Toast! Celebrate Christmas with us as we bring you our thoughts on the best and worst holiday specials of the animated world!

Movies, TV specials, DVD features, TV show episodes and other Christmas and seasonal themed cartoons will all be featured here. Check out the table of contents below and check back often for the latest updates!